Rosemary's Reflection on R3

Rosemary Johnson – Year 4 Classroom Teacher and R3 Facilitator
Chisholm Catholic Primary School Bligh Park

I was asked to run the R3 program in our school last year when I was in  Learning Support.  I relished the chance to be part of a pilot program that was  supporting children in Stage 3 in the area of Literacy, in particular in the area of Reading and Comprehension.

The program targets children in Stage 3 who are challenged in the areas of Reading and Comprehension.  The children were chosen based on their Pat-R and Naplan results and in consultation with the Year 5 classroom teachers.  The first step was to look at these results and assess what areas of concern there were and the areas of strength.  After careful scrutiny of the data the children were given further tests to assess their reading and comprehension levels.  These included the ‘Reading Interview’, ‘Running Records’, ‘Read and Retell’, ‘Reading Mindmap’ and ‘Burt’.

The four children I am working with begun the program a little bit reserved, as did I.  Being an intensive program the expectations were high and it took some time to get into the groove of what we all needed to do.  During this time of transition the children and I were supported by Kathy Ferrari and given direction through discussions and mentoring.  Kathy willingly led sessions and explained in depth what the expectations and mechanics of the program were.  We also had collegial sessions with the support of the Lead Educators of Literacy from the CEO who assisted us in moving forward with the program.

Now that the program has been running for 18 weeks there have been significant changes in the way these children read, comprehend and critique a variety of texts from the fiction and non-fiction genres.  Their confidence and abilities have certainly grown.  The children are becoming critical readers who can effectively predict, visualise, clarify, retell, summarise and read a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts.  Their responses, discussions and reflections during daily sessions have become more detailed and in-depth.   There has been continuing assessment completed during the 18 weeks that attest to the growth of the children’s abilities.

The program has also assisted me in being an effective classroom teacher as I have implemented some of the practices used in the R3 program.  The program has helped these children to address some of the challenges they have had in the area of Reading and Comprehension and shown them that they are capable learners.

Rosemary's Post on Tuesday, 8 March 2016

The children are working on summarising and questioning.

Rosemary's Post at R3 meeting

Met with R3 team to discuss, reflect and assess the progress made so far in relation to the children who are under our care regarding the program. The session also allowed us to discuss concerns and issues we may facing in the teaching of the program. We shared ideas about a child who has presented with a couple of interesting challenges to assist the teacher of this child. We talked about and set up collegial visits in order to support and learn from one another.  The session was informative and gave me more to think about and address within my own teaching of the R3 program.

Rosemary's Post on Thursday, 29 October 2015

R3 has been an interesting journey so far. The four children I have are moving along with their learning. They are a relaxed foursome who can be highly motivated and engage eagerly in discussions or at other times be distracted by something else happening. My quiet girls are speaking out more and making sure their voice is heard. There has been definite improvement for the children in the area of comprehending the text at a higher level. The skill that has seen the most growth is the finding of evidence within the text regardless of the type of question asked. The children are learning to back up their answers with proof from the text. The children are making more connections with the various texts based on previous experiences, similar known texts and the world around them. The next area of focus is summarising which the children seem to struggle with when we do reciprocal reading. We will also be looking at the author's intentions and meanings behind what they have written. The area I work in is in our MPA so I am restricted with what I can do and put up in that area so the children have two workbooks which they record things in. Our next thing is to put some of the learning up on a movable pin board.